Thank You...Lucy Maud!

This post and what I am about to write about are the perfect example of why receiving comments are so important to me when it comes to writing this blog.... 

One of the long time readers of this blog Spockgirl (and I am a long time reader of her's as well: Spockgirl Musings) commented on the post "My Friend...SORROW" last night/early this morning. I really respect her point of view and she had a very challenging perspective that was quite worthy of consideration. In the course of her comment, she referred to a poem that she felt was relevant and said she would look it up and post it on her blog. She has done that and it is an amazing work. I am amazed that a woman who lived in the late 19th and early 20th Century could write something so relevant to my life...a 50 year old recovering addict/alcoholic living in the 21st Century. I think that once again proves the amazing power of relating to one another as human beings...particularly  on an emotional level as I did here with her.            

The author is Lucy Maud Montgomery  and the poem is titled: "The Revelation"

The Revelation

Once to my side a veiled figure came

To bear me company,

Deeming that Sorrow was her bitter name,

I strove from her to flee.

She clasped my hand in hers and led me on

Beneath a clouded sky;

Till many dour and dreary days had gone,

Right sullenly went I.

But as time passed I grew to love my guide.

No more escape I sought;

At last contented by her gentle side

To learn the lessons taught.

Then lifted she her veil and showed to me

Her calm eternal youth.

"Lo! Mortal, who has known my ministry,

Behold me - I am Truth."

Well...that most certainly got my attention! "Behold me - I am Truth"! Holy cow does that hit rather close to home for this weary and worn life traveller! And in many ways I concur with the author's choice to accept Sorrow, indeed to fall in love with it, embrace it and learn the valuable lesson's taught by it.

I guess that was the difficult aspect of writing about MY SORROW...one of accepting the immovable, unchanging, inevitable reality of it, that I struggled to explain well in any previous post on the subject. When it is a daily part of your life, it no longer feels like a negative emotion. It becomes part of your "normal" and besides accepting it and living with that fact you eventually can embrace it and learn & grow from it as well.

That was a lesson that was critical to my continued growth in recovery and as a human being because I mistakenly thought that to really be healthy emotionally and psychologically that I had to completely "get over" all the things that hurt me or held me back when I was a younger. Well, I found that not only is that totally unrealistic to expect to get over all such things...it's actually not within the realm of possibility.

Sorrow....particularly SORROW that runs so deep that it becomes entwined in one's psyche...literally becoming part of a person's SOUL. To realistically think at some point down the road that I could actually detach from something that is such a part of me was madness...it could never happen. that realization actually made it easier for me to accept the TRUTH, embrace it and move on with life.

Today...I no longer see SORROW as the road block to any happiness or joy or serenity or WHATEVER other positive emotion I may feel...no in some ways acknowledging that sorrow in my life has proven to be liberating and has actually has helped  me grow. It's funny how that works and may seem hard to believe but that is truly how it works for me today!